The Milton Friedman Choir

Song and Music may be the antidote to jolt you awake. Here are Milton Friedman's words presented by the most surreal Milton Friedman Choir or more aptly, a requiem for your dreams.

M. Friedman is dead, it is perhaps time to rethink his ideas.

No Spoofs Please... We're Hindus

You either get it or you don't. Devendra Banhart's solitary claim to fame, at least in pop culture, so far, has been that he's Natalie Portman's ex-boyfriend. On his own, he comes across as a psychedelic rebel looking to affront. He ain't no Allen Ginsberg when it comes to the standard of psychedelic rebels but I thought he was amusing to read at least in this article that he wrote after his break up with Natalie Portman. He's also a songwriter, singer and a musician whose career, well at least I haven't been following.

His new music video for the song Carmensita, from his album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, is a spoof of Ramayana and has gotten Hindu Religious scholars all riled up.

Internet killed the Video Star... or did it?

Just saw the new Radiohead video for House of Cards from their album In Rainbows and was totally blown away.

Fans of Radiohead remember that this album was released earlier this year and was available DRM-free as a download at your own price from Radiohead's official website. I mean it was literally a donation based project. I remember having a long discussion with a friend when this album came out. This was also the time when the writers' strike was at its peak.

His position was that the Internet and its vast reach is diminishing artists' ability to create and disseminate their work and only enriching the Record companies. In fact, new kinds of media distribution outlets like Apple, Microsoft etc. were jumping in on the game to share the profits with Sony, Virgin, HMV etc. and artists were getting lesser and lesser than before.

My position was that it had never been easy for artists and from the days of playing local bard in penury to today was not a result of benign companies supporting or helping artists. It was an ever growing world wide access to their work which allowed them better economic success and a more direct relationship to their fans. But this kind of scenario required artists to adapt and problems arose when the change was coming too quickly for some.

In other words, all said and done, the Internet is not the culprit but a volatile catalyst for a different kind of world. Whether that world is good or bad... well that's a separate debate. Besides, there's really no going back.